The UK Chancellor’s new austerity program sees millions of doctors, teachers and civil servants losing automatic pay rises. George Osborne is extending spending cuts to 2015-16, forced by slower than expected economic growth and deficit reduction.

George Osborne has detailed a massive £11.5bn budget cut for the
election year 2015-16. Local government budgets and welfare
payments are among those hardest hit, according to the plan.

“Difficult decisions” still had to be made, media quotes Osborne.
He says, pay rises in the public sector would be limited to one
per cent while further job cuts would be made.

"While recovery from such a deep recession can never be
straightforward, Britain is moving out of intensive care - and
from rescue to recovery," Osborne is reported as saying.

"We've always believed that the deficit mattered; that we need
to take tough decisions to deal with our debts - and the
opposition to that has collapsed into incoherence," he told
Parliament.

Speaking about recovery from one of the biggest economic crises
the world has seen, Osborne said the government brought the
deficit down by a third, got a record number of people into work
and saved the economy from bankruptcy.

The country’s borrowing was reduced by £49bn, which is almost the
equivalent of the education budget, FT quotes Osborne. He also
said that confirmed total managed expenditure would be £745bn and
would continue to fall in real terms at the same rate as it is
doing today.

The Chancellor however sugared the austerity pill with an
infrastructure boost, announcing £300bn of new capital spending
projects by the end of the decade - including the largest program
of road building in 50 years.

George Osborne has been cutting spending aggressively since
coming to power in 2010. However, weak economic growth and a
costly welfare system disturbed the government's original plans
to wipe out a budget deficit which it inherited at 11.2 percent
of GDP, International Business Times reports.

The country’s austerity program has been challenged by the loss
of its triple-A credit rating and calls from the International
Monetary Fund to postpone cuts and increase infrastructure
investment, according to the paper.

Britain’s unpopular austerity program is also witnessing growing
public anger. Last Saturday thousands of people took part in the
first People’s Assembly Against Austerity that brought together
unions, activists and many members of the public from teachers
and nurses to the unemployed.